Senate Democrats said Sunday that they were fleshing out plans to pass health legislation, particularly the option of a new government-run insurance program, with a simple majority, instead of the 60 votes that would ordinarily be needed to overcome a filibuster.

After consulting experts in Senate rules and procedure, the Democrats said they were increasingly confident that they could legislate creation of a public plan in a way that would withstand challenges expected from Republicans.

Appearing Sunday on the NBC News program Meet the Press, Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate, said a public insurance plan was essential to getting the costs down, which is our No. 1 problem.

Proponents of a public plan say it would drive down costs because it would not have a profit motive and would have lower overhead costs and lower executive salaries than private insurance companies.

In Colorado on Aug. 15, President Obama said people had become fixated on the public plan option, which he described as just one sliver of efforts to overhaul the health care system.

Mr. Schumer said it was looking less and less likely that Republicans would support Democratic proposals to subsidize coverage for tens of millions of the uninsured. And Senate Democratic leaders said they had little hope that the chairman of the Finance Committee, Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, would be able to forge a bipartisan compromise.

In the last week, Democrats have begun to talk openly of using a procedure known as budget reconciliation to pass a health bill in the Senate with a simple majority, assuming no Republican support.

Proponents of a public plan say it would drive down costs because it would not have a profit motive and would have lower overhead costs and lower executive salaries than private insurance companies.

Precisely why it will crowd-out and kill the private sector. Anybody who knows the industry knows that this type of "competition" has been tried with Homeowners insurance (FAIR Plans) and Auto insurance (Assigned Risk plans). In every case the state monopoly underpriced the underwriting, ran up huge deficits and sought a fix by assessing (taxing) the private insurers and/or the taxpayers. Just ask any Florida resident how happy they are with their state run Citizens Ins Company.

23
posted on 08/23/2009 8:20:10 PM PDT
by JrsyJack
(There's a little Jim Thompson in all of us)

Could it be theyre willing to lose control of Congress to get this enacted?

Simply...NO. This is all about solidifying power over the people. There are no altruistic motives here despite all the spin. They want the power that comes with controlling 16% of the economy and the future ability to mandate lifestyle changes in return for health care benefits.

31
posted on 08/23/2009 8:28:22 PM PDT
by JrsyJack
(There's a little Jim Thompson in all of us)

The govt. plan does not need, by some of their own anticipatory statements, 90% of the specialists now in practice, and in shortage to the public, as the govt cut all specialist training positions by 25% in 2000/2001 nationally. Cutting out private insurance carriers and reducing practice incomes of the private practice docs to medicare or below, levels of reimbursement will force them from practice. They cannot be absorbed into salaried hospital positions. The public, in ignorance, is about to see their MD populations reduced beyond what will be their pleasure and they will be trapped in a static world of rigidly controlled health MANAGEMENT with no recourse to draconian policies by ‘committee’...soooo collectively utopian with real results in the dredful arenas of imagination.

The Dems are going to pass this up to the last second and try to spook some Republicans to vote for it, much like a football team on 4th down try to get the opposing defense off-sides with a hard count.

“The govt. plan does not need, by some of their own anticipatory statements, 90% of the specialists now in practice, and in shortage to the public, as the govt cut all specialist training positions by 25% in 2000/2001 nationally.”

Well, at least we’ll have enough lawyers. You can always go to an attorney if you’re sick. After all, the best way to reduce health care costs is to die. If everyone who gets government money for health care would die before they receive expensive treatments, we could make big inroads on the deficit, and that would free up money for more important things, like funds for ACORN, and bailouts for union owned auto makers.

Is there any doubt left that the primary purpose of nationalized health care insurance is to increase the power of the left in this country? The sad thing is the extent to which individuals do not see the power grab for what it is. Also, before I forget, this should make clear to the GOP once and for all that “big business” is not a constituency for them (ie the pharma companies striking a deal with the White House to promote this nationalization, GE, etc...)

There’s a term for a political movement which becomes a secular religion of the state and which drags in large private interests to its web. But of course it’s the pissed off retiree who castigates a congressman who’s the true fascist.

The left is comprised of those of limited means who expect something for nothing and those of means who don’t expect to have to use the crappy state run programs they want to foist on the people.

I don’t get it. Has this country not learned from recent history? Ten years ago a leftist president was proclaiming the end of the “era of big government” and yet here we are in the 21st century with idiots clamoring for the creation of a 1960s-ish bureaucratic monstrosity to control one-fifth of the nation’s economy.

This nonsense has been played out again and again in human history. It doesn’t work. It stagnates economies, destroys liberty, and pits group against group.

Leftists don’t understand a thing about economic growth and wealth and job creation. They think job creation is about taking the money of the character in the Monopoly board game and dispensing it through the federal department of job creation. They want to kill the economic goose which has provided so many golden eggs (and jobs) to this country over the years and resulted in a large and independent middle class. They hate this. It may seem quaint, but these knuckleheads live and breathe Marx. They believe they are fighting the great class war and their enemy is the American bourgeois, as well as those entrepreneurs who risk their money and time to pursue their dream and create plenty of jobs and opportunities along the way for others.

The results of nationalizing health care and some kind of cap and trade nonsense passing will be felt swiftly and severly in this country. It will absolutely kill any chance of regaining the robust economic and job growth Americans have come to take for granted. Investment will go elsewhere.

This seems rather obvious. So why is it happening? Simple. It’s a political power grab, which happens to fit the ideology of the left. These moves will increase the political power of the left in this country by making Americans yet more dependent upon the federal government. Just take a look at how older Americans react to any proposed changes in Medicare and Social Security (nevermind the looming financial cluster both of those represent or the $2 trillion deficit the federal government faces this fiscal year).

This crap absolutely has to be defeated. Or else we are going to be telling our children and grandchildren what living in a free and prosperous America used to be like.

The govt. plan does not need, by some of their own anticipatory statements, 90% of the specialists now in practice,

What happens to all the doctors that took out massive loans to get through school that will no longer be able to make a high enough salary to pay them back? And going forward, what person in their right mind would want to shell out the big bucks to become some cookie-cutter physician that all they get to do is say turn your head and cough?

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